Mermaid Monaxiá
by Silverfern500
Summary: On their 15th birthday, the princesses are allowed to swim up to the surface. Ariel was never the first, and the night she saw Prince Eric's boat wasn't the first time he'd been out sailing, either. It is the youngest princesses' 12th year, and Arista has just turned 15. Somewhat based on Hans Christian Anderson's Little Mermaid as well as the disney tv series. Alt. Pairing.
1. Surfacing

Most stories, I would say, begin when you wake up. When your eyes clench shut against the warmth of light before fluttering open, like little wings on this pale blue thing eternally circling our fiery mothball of a sun. Stories begin when something changes the way we live our very ordinary lives. It could be the change in the host of that radio show your alarm is set to because you miss your mother singing you awake. It could be that they're out of pizza at work or you're running late. It could even be that your left sock caught in the washer and tore, and you don't even notice until it's on your foot and stretches to reveal the pale pink skin beneath. There are so many ways in which a story, or someone's life, may be affected. However this story has nothing of that sort. It starts, as I alluded to, not at the beginning, but at the end. When a frail woman of about 23 coughs and shuts her eyes the way rain settles over the ocean, slipped into her first dreamless sleep in years.

Dreams can be meaningful and intuitive, they can be harrowing and unsettling, and they can be comfortingly subtle. For every night of her life, Arista had dreamed of pretty pearls at the bottom of the deep, of the light shifting through kelp near the surface. Sometimes these dreams mixed with the adventures her youngest sister, Ariel, told her of when they were on good terms. In the idle hours they smiled and played, exchanging quick words to pass the time. Yet the most captivating of her own memories, the day she turned 15, was a personal favorite to relive in her dreams.  
In her family it was customary for a princess to surface on the day of her 15th birthday. The very first time this happened, when the beloved eldest daughter and heir to the throne, Attina, arose, it garnered a long and beautiful ceremony full of excitement. There was even a feast, and a whole musical performance to accompany her upward swim. On her visit she saw the darkening sky and the low flying birds and struck with awe dove back down immediately to tell her family.  
Aquata, the second eldest, requested the same treatment when she came of age later that year. She surfaced and saw a grey whale breaching the waves, the sun high above hurting her eyes,making her see spots. Disoriented, she returned to her sisters and slept the rest of the day.  
The next princess, Andrina, was the first not to request the ceremony and had only a long heart to heart with their father before going. She saw a pod of dolphins playing in the waves and joined them for a game of chase around a sandbar. She returned later that night to tell everyone of how soft the sand was where it was constantly sifted by the waves, how she'd found a pretty kelp bed and seen the endless expanse of the sea.  
Arista herself wasn't interested in making a ruckus or in bothering Triton, and gathered with her sisters before her surfacing only to promise them a story or two as her sisters had before her.  
It may be later noted that by the time Ariel came of age, she had already been to the surface many times and was missing from her bed by the time anyone had awoken to go get her.

Not even from her three elder sisters' tales could Arista imagine how vast the world above the sea would look from where she peered out, her eyes itchy from the air. Breathing in the rough stuff made her hack and cough though she was determined to see her fill. She wondered how none of the others had mentioned such difficulty as she looked to the horizon. She was stunned by the view, and squinting could just make out the shape of a great object, akin to the broadside of a whale and just as grey and bleak through the darkening sky. It toppled through the waves as black reefs grew over head and dropped down fresh water as fast as she'd seen any deep vents throw up bubbles.

Arista's older sisters had mentioned no such thing as what she saw now, it wasn't actually a grey whale as Aquata had seen. The general consensus of the human world was that it was filled with only endless blue on endless sea. It was altogether unremarkable after a while, albeit new. There was no reason any of them had decided to resurface after their first visit, and so this right of passage continued its purpose. If their father could keep them from the humans while dousing their curiosity, then all the better. Dissuading his daughters ever coming to harm was, and will always be, Triton's primary focus. He hardly payed attention to them otherwise, Arista soured, unless they whined or they happened to be their favored sister, Ariel. Who only got the attention they all sought by inheriting their deceased mother's looks and antics.

Sound careened over the worsening waves towards her then, and she knew there had to be something more worth the trip. Besides, she'd be the talk of the castle if she brought a more interesting tale than her dear sisters. As she battled the growing waves and neared the massive ship, for she could recognize it now as those wrecked in the deep, she could hear better the funny music of an accordion, along with the gruff voices of sailors she could not understand. She wanted to ask them about their instruments and mother tongue, heaving herself up atop a tiny ledge on the boat. She knew it was dangerous as her tail dragged her down heavily. She had to press the lightly barbed edge of it, as well as the pressure of its muscles, to the wooden slats in order to gain any sort of balance. A funny circular window let her peer into the ship from there. Her mouth was parted in wonder as she took it all in with wide eyes. It was a blast of color, she could only compare it to the day her father took her to see a coral reef when she was very young. Even though water still poured over the men, brightlight burned in the corners of their surfacefloor and they jostled and moved about in what she could only guess was dancing. The rhythm of their shouts and stomps filled her and she soon forgot the storm as well. Weird colored liquids sloshed from blocky wooden things they held to their faces, getting caught in the whiskers on their chins and staining the landkelp they wore. Some didn't wear any and the rain mixed in with the sweat on their backs.

Time slipped by, Arista became entranced as a young boy walked on from some area of the ship she couldn't see. He was by far the most interesting of the humans there. She thought he looked her age, if not less. He was soft featured and gawky, running about with a round orb reminiscent of her days playing kick the clam at school. Messy black hair fell all over his face, causing her to reach up and check on her own blonde locks, soaked as always but matted down from a life of salt and jelly treatment. An old beaky man chased after him when she looked back, something she later would come to understand was about the young boy missing lessons and being foolish.

She was loosing track of their location and night had long since fallen when lightning cracked across the sea and illuminated her face and eyes, which were previously glowing from a feature her kind share in common with sharks. It was well past the time she'd agreed to be back, and with some difficulty she dislodged her tail and slid into the murky waters. She hadn't noticed how far the structure had drifted from where she'd surfaced, and was disoriented in finding her way back to the still ocean where the castle stood. It seemed quite bland in comparison to all the bright colors of the bright and she found herself feeling a bit of loss. When her sisters, in their nightwear, surrounded her she had no words and a big grin on her face. "I saw everything!" She exclaimed with a sigh, and left them all very confused as she hummed the tune from the ship above the waves. They chalked it up to her being her normal ditzy self as she dreamed that night of the handsome boy, and wondered if any of it had happened at all.


	2. The Promise

The young woman could not feel her lower half, heavy under what the nice lady who bathed her called 'sheets'. The air was no longer abrasive nor sticky on her neck and forehead, and underneath the light duvet she could feel the warmth and security of the red nightgown she had been lent. Yet she was feverish, and the ponytail in her long yellow hair dug into the back of her skull where it was propped up on two feather down pillows.

It was not, consequently, the first time she had lain in a bed topside. No, her first experience was not one of such luxury. It was in a rather small cottage that smelled of straw and mold, where the mattress was hard and the air suffocating, that she had been captured before. Though she looked back on it and would not feel entirely regretful of the experience now. It had been the week her younger sister Adella turned 15. She recalled how the waves crashed relentlessly on the rocks of the cliff where the cottage stood, and the heat had boiled her shoulders, drying out her lungs and eyes accustomed only to salt and cool sea. She was suddenly very grateful for the cool stone walls and the warm bath she'd been given. The low murmur of worried voices outside and the open window across the room she knew looked out over the path leading to a little beach inlet protected by ocean. Where she'd left a part of herself, she thought.

Arista was always talking about strange lights that burst, like glowing jellies in the deep. She wondered if those topside had ridged... appendages. If their skin itched in the air or in the rain. And she hadn't seen their eyes shine in the dark, but she'd been entranced still by the young boy's and wondered what was different between them. She could speak of this, however, with no one. For a week she floated aimlessly around the castle, barely paying attention to her lessons or the chatter of her sisters. There was always something happening, and not even Ariel's latest mishap with a great octopus could drive her from her reverie. Adella was the most intrigued, as she was 14 and next in line to ascend. The three eldest daughters and Alana would not give either of them the time of day. So Arista took Adella as close to the surface as possible, where between the swaying kelp she could point out the direction she'd swum after the great boat, and touched its hull.

"Oh, it was so big! I could see nothing around it at all- and the way it pulled the waves under it in a swirl as it moved!"

Excitement bubbled over as they made a promise not to tell on each other there, below the sun and shifting light. Arista told her about the clouds she saw and the fire, which she described as "Bright light like orange seaweed lapping at the sky," which must "keep away the fresh pearls of water falling down". She told her younger sister in hushed tones about the music, her eyes widening as she threw out her hands and mimicked the playing of an accordion, forcing a strangled wheeze from her mouth to simulate the sound. Adella clasped her hands and giggled, and soon the two were swirling around each other, pretending to dance and play fake instruments from the strange world above. But Arista still would not tell her sister about the boy, or the beaky man. And they returned to the castle that evening to find Ariel pouting on the window seat in their shared bedroom.

The youngest of their sisters was 12 at the time and already getting into trouble. She was currently alone and hugging her cheek to the bend of her green tail, poking at the sides.

"Ariel, what's the matter?" Adella spoke up as she swam in beside the small red head. "Was father, um, being loud at you again?"

"Yeah that'd be so like him," Arista blew at a strand of hair that had fallen in her face and rolled her eyes. "What'cha do?"

Ariel frowned and turned her head to peer up at them through the shelf of her bangs. "I just wish he'd understand. I was only trying to pet it." She pulled the last few words into a whine, before sighing. "He beached me."

Oh dear everything, and stuck the curious preteen on lockdown with the rest of them? Who was daddy really punishing! Arista had groaned. When little Ariel wasn't out making trouble, she was trailing after the blonde on her errands into town or to the outskirts of the kingdom. It was when Arista stopped venturing out herself that Ariel started going farther, to the ship wrecks and coves, Eel-ectric City and the sharks' lair. Ariel told her sister of those adventures years later when Arista had other things on her mind. Since she wouldn't pay attention and frequently cut Ariel off to talk about her hair or something she'd seen in the market the day before, tension grew between them. Arista always secretly (or not so secretly) looked forward to Ariel's stories anyway.

Point is, Ariel admired her big sister. She wanted Arista to take her side on the matter. She did not, so Ariel, dejected by her sister's disinterest, filled with more sorrow and began to weep.

"Arista, tell her about it!" Adella suddenly asked. "Tell her about the colors, maybe, and the funny landkelp-backed humans!"

Arista settled her with a viscous glare as Ariel stifled her sniffling to hear. When she came up with the biggest, most imploring look she could manage, she fixed it on the elder sister and held. Adella quickly caught on and copied her. It was guppy-eyes overload.

There was nothing Arista could do. Feeling a bit frustrated and and a tadpole bit betrayed, she finally told Ariel her tale, sparing every possible detail she could. Ariel was confused about most of it, and though she could not escape the feeling there had been parts left out towards the end, she let it go. Telling her had done the trick, entrancing Ariel and changing her thoughts to focus on the world above. She never quite stopped thinking about such things, and so her interest in the human world began to grow from then on, much to everyone's dismay.

"I've never heard something quite so bold!" She exclaimed with a small smile. "You must have been very brave, Arista. I won't tell father." There was something to say about her adolescent sincerity. Arista was not at all set at ease, but the word of her sisters' was kept.

Where she lay on the bed in the palace Arista smiled warmly to herself from as she remembered how bratty those two had been that night, and how she wished to see them again. Maybe that was her problem. Impatience and impulsivity. Ah, but she was falling steadily back into sleep. As she strained to hear the ocean or gulls outside, and settled on tuning into the voices out in the hall again, her mind wandered to the promise that started her on the long journey home...

Two weeks after she was beached Ariel was off again, stirring up chaos in the fields. Attina held court with King Triton to prepare for the day she would be Queen. Aquata was out to lunch with a few very close friends from nearby. Andrina went out to help out with the tilling of the clam beds, and Alana spent the day at the spa.

Which left Adella to watch Arista as she swam back and forth down one of the castle's many corridors as she had been prone to do more and more often. She fiddled with her scales and twisted locks of her hair around her pinkie. Growling slightly to herself and cursing as she apparently could not recall the exact note following the few she'd already hummed from the night she surfaced. Adella was distressed. It hadn't occurred that this might happen. Arista had become more easily annoyed in the last couple of days. She had double takes where she thought she noticed someone at the gates or a shadow passed from a whale overhead, only for there to be nothing. Adella nearly lost it when a little brunette boy accidentally kicked a clam into the garden and Arista wound up ripping up a particularly looked after patch of seagrass, disturbing some fish who had been hiding between the fronds. The castle was always the same. Everything under the sea was the same day after day, so constant in fact that it set Arista's teeth on edge and made her skin prickly to even be there. Wanderlust touched the corners of her nerves. Everything in her was telling her to swim and swim fast until she left everything in a rush of bubbles, until she found what she was missing.

Something was wrong.

Adella picked at her fins nervously before building the courage to take her sister by the arm, demanding to know what had her so on edge.

"I can't!" Arista threw her hands up. "Oh it's hopeless." And she began to wail over the railing, which lined the inside of the corridor and looked out over the courtyard. Her outburst drew the attention of a few mermen come to seek the King.

"What is?" Adella hushed her, patting her shoulder affectionately.

Arista just shrugged her off and swam a pace away. When she spoke again it was resolved, yet her sister detected how forlorn she sounded. "I shall never see him again."

"Him?" Her eyebrows knit under the bun of hair on her forehead. She didn't know what to say at all. Arista was a bit dramatic sometimes, but she never acted like this. She had liked a few boys without giving any of them this kind of time of day.

"Yes, yes. The boy from the boat. Adella. I must see him again!"

Adella was at a loss. She didn't know what to do or say at all. Arista had been topside many a time since those weeks ago when she'd first surfaced, without much luck, and the younger sister had never known why. She couldn't go look for herself. So she did all she could, and promised that on her 15th birthday when she took her journey topside, she would look for the boat and this mystery boy she'd heard nothing of. Arista thanked her profusely and, seeming to have remembered the missing note, swam on down to the gardens to practice the song again. She wanted to get it perfect, if she ever had the chance to sing it to the world above the waves. Adella was left perturbed and feeling remorse for Arista, only hoping her sister might forget the ship altogether and go back to being her normal self.


	3. Loyalty

"Today's the day!" Arista chirped into the small cavern of the girls' bedroom. "Wake up sleepy gills! Don't want to miss your breakfast feast, do you?" she was more or less inclined to make it known through tone of voice how little she actually cared for tradition. Still, each princess got to choose whether they would be celebrating their 15th or not (as well as what time of day they preferred to surface), and Adella had decided to go along with a morning cast off. She had not expected to be woken up at the crack of dawn, however.

The brunette flopped onto her stomach on her shell bed, pulling a pillow down pointedly over her head and ears. The long hair spilling out from under was a mess of tangles and hadn't been pulled into its usual forehead bun yet. She was still wearing her flimsy sleep top.

"C'moooon," her older sister groaned, pulling at Adella's fins. "Everyone's waiting!" It had been sneaky, but in the middle of the night Arista had more or less convinced their five remaining siblings to abandon the area. She might have promised her eternal servitude and an unending supply of all the extra clams she got at dinner for the rest of her years in the castle, but that was beside the point. Triton, his advising crab Sebastian, Ariel's guppy friend Flounder and the rest of the sleepy family, as well as some of the castle's guards and guests, were all waiting on the main floor.

Arista was beyond anxious. Adella's feigned snoring did not sit well with her at all, and she got a cunning idea. Without beating her tail much so as to keep quiet, the blonde crossed over to her vanity, grabbing a brush. Her reflection gave off an evil smirk as she oh so carefully slid the bristles up under Adella's pillow, caught hold, and gave a nasty yank.

Up floated the pillow as Adella's arms snapped to tangle with Arista's.

She shrieked, "that's not fair you- you eel!" Reclaiming control over where her hair had been pulled.

Arista relinquished her hold on the brush and doubled over laughing, hitting her cheek on the hard shell bedframe. There were tears in both girls' eyes as Adella gently styled her hair and flicked Arista hard on the arm.

"Alright, alright don't get your scales in a frenzy. I'm going" She rolled her eyes, pulling off her shirt and replacing it with her shell bra. She paused to put two little clams on her ears before jetting out of the room and down to the dining room on the seafloor. Arista, momentarily disoriented by how quick she'd been, was smacked in the face with a few bubbles from her sister's wake, and hurried after her. Adella couldn't really been mad at her, but Arista had been driving her spiny for the past week. Each day they got closer to her birthday, she noticed Arista tailing her closer and closer, until the day before when she hadn't left her side at all. Truthfully, Adella felt a bit sad, that if she couldn't find this mysterious boy or his ship it might destroy her sister altogether. After all, none of their other sisters had seen a ship at all. What if the sea remained open and empty for her own surfacing? Adella didn't express her concerns, however. She knew Arista was smarter than she let on and would feel worse about the odds than she did.

Everyone at the breakfast table seemed to be two parts excited and one part restless. The restlessness was ultimately a desire to return to bed. King Triton's face brightened and everyone settled down, relieved, when Adella swam in. They didn't pay as much attention when Arista nearly rolled in onto her fins a few seconds later. The ceremony could begin. Triton headed the table, with his two eldest daughters, Attina, on his right side. Aquata sat on his left. Andrina sat next to her and then Alana. Arista took her place next to Attina (and across from Aquata) as she was fourth eldest. Since it was Adella's birthday, she took the foot of the table, with her younger sister Alana on her left. To her right sat Ariel, the youngest of the princesses at 13 years old. She smiled the brightest and wished Adella a very happy 15th. She was perhaps the most excited for Adella to surface and bring back her stories, next to Arista.

Breakfast was clams, kelp, sea snails, and shrimp. Conversation was kept light as they all enjoyed the meal, and afterword Triton made an announcement on how proud he was of his daughters. What fine princesses they were all turning out to be, and how fond he was of them. He remarked on Adella's kindness and perceptiveness in regards to the citizens of the kingdom, as well as her sisters. She was always able to understand when they were in a good mood or were upset and was always ready to help. She would greet everyone with a smile. Triton expressed his hope that she find the surface agreeable enough.  
Each sister, in order, had gotten up and hugged Adella as they expressed their love and desire to hear her stories upon her return. Arista gave the longest hug, both excited and hopeful, but was unusually quiet. Ariel on the other hand could not stop asking or reminding Adella to remember every single detail, and then some.

"Are you sure you'll remember it all?" She worried her lip. "You will, won't you? Oh, won't you bring me something back?" Her eyes danced and she gripped her sister's hands tight, overwrought with anticipation.  
Adella laughed and pulled her into another hug, promising to do her very best.

Finally, it was time to go.

Arista watched from the edge of the room as Adella gathered herself, whipping her tail against the seafloor to gain the propulsion that would carry her to the surface with each powerful flick of her fins. The room below her clapped and cheered. They all watched as she became smaller and smaller, then steadily they all pushed their chairs in and the room emptied out. Arista waited for the palace staff to clear the table and leave through the corridor that led to the kitchen. She carefully scanned the area, checking that she was truly alone, before pushing herself straight up and beating her tail against the water in order to reach the air as fast as possible. She was not the fastest swimmer in the family, Ariel was that, but she was determined to find Adella before she swam out of range.  
Adella herself had broken the surface and gasped at the sheer openness of the world. No clouds were in the sky and the air was filled with the cawing of seabirds out for their own breakfast. She smiled at them and waved, splashing her hands down into the water to wet her face. Her skin was growing tight fast, but she didn't mind. She noticed the lighter green-blue color of the waters near her and remarked that she must be near the sandbar Andrina had found. She thought that, certainly such shallow water would not be good for swimming or sailing near, and regretted that she must leave the clear water and soft sand for deeper water. Arista surfaced about this time and followed from a foot yards back.

So they both noticed the growing shadow in the distance at the same time.  
"Oh!" Adella cooed. It was quite the miracle indeed, but there was no way to tell if the hull that had been quickly coming into view was _Arista's_ ship or not. It was quite a bit smaller than Arista's story, even so she could still note how it did pull the water beneath and alongside it as it disrupted the flow, creating its own rippling waves. Though it was a nice day, there was an underlying wind that moved it along quickly. Adella was just noticing the small triangular white things billowing in the air on strange poles. She was busy watching the forms of two men bustling about and pulling at strange ropes not so far above her, so she tried to stay mostly underwater with only her eyes above to see. She was too busy, in this case, to notice just how close it had gotten when she heard the shouts of the men and felt rather than saw a great school of fish move frantically past her. Their gills and fins tickled her stomach, and as she turned to watch them swim away behind her, the boat loomed closer. She could hear the panicked voice of Arista, and briefly wondered when she'd gotten there. Adella wanted to ask why she was concerned when her arm caught on something rough. Her mind went wild as she thrashed her tail and arms, pulling at the net that held her.

"Adella!" Arista cried, floating at eye level with Adella as she pulled at the rope. Tears spilled from her eyes. Adella was sobbing out of shock, but Arista could not accept defeat yet.

"You've got to swim down!" She decided. The boat was headed back where in the direction it had come from now that it had a catch. Arista had to swim faster to keep up, but she grabbed at the net and still pulled it towards the deep. Together they pulled until the boat was leaning and the men above running about in a panic. Still the boat sped along, even against the wind. Arista cursed that she could not reach their father to have his help in turning the tide. "That's it, keep going!" She encouraged, but Adella was getting even more tangled, and fatigued.

"I can't do this for much longer," she protested. Above, the fishermen were attempting to haul the net up.  
Arista pulled herself up to see more. Her heart dropped as she saw land, where great weeds that did not dance in the waves or wind stood in clusters. Between the groves, there was the entrance to a wide river. They wanted to pull their catch aboard before they reached it and Arista could not let that happen.

"Jellyfish," she breathed as she sank. She was ready for a plan B and coming up with nothing fast. Adella sank against the bottom of the net and it lurched up with the sudden ease of resistance. As both mermaids were startled, Arista pulled the entwined ropes harder and noticed near her fingers how some strands were coming loose from being tugged by the barbs on Adella's tail. "Adella!" She shouted.

"It's hopeless," Adella sniffed, rather thinking that she should never see her sisters or father or home again.

"No," Arista demanded. "Rub you tail against the rope, and don't stop swimming down!" She set her eyes and hoped she exuded the confidence she didn't feel as she gave a wicked grin. "We've got this," she assured Adella softly.

The two worked against the heave of the sailors, whose arms strained and faces went red from holding their breath and grating their teeth. They cut and cut, as Arista's fins brushed the top of the riverbed. Most of the rope had been cut away and Adella was pulling the last of it apart to get the bulk of her tale out. She popped free, somersaulting into the free water with an exasperated squeak of delight. The fishermen fell to the deck as the net gave way and was pulled on top of them, empty and destroyed. They yelled and kicked, later telling the people of the fishing village of the one that got away. Not a one of them having actually laid eyes on the catch. Adella collapsed into Arista's arms.

"Thank you, oh I didn't think I'd survive that."Adella admitted. "You were so strong"

Arista buckled under the admiration, she felt guilty. "I was scared but I mean, I couldn't just let that happen." She quirked her head and felt heavy for more than one reason. She knew she could never go searching for her ship again, and she accepted it because she never wanted this to happen again.

"Let's go," Adella floated back a pace. They smiled at each other and she put out a hand for Arista to take.  
As she reached for it, her vision was skewed suddenly. Adella gasped and yanked her arm back as another net filled the river's opening, and with a great heave, and to the horror of both, Arista was flung atop the land and out of Adella's view.

She turned tail and she fled, for Arista was no longer within her reach, and only her father could help with her distress now.

Arista was left staring up at a gleeful old woman with white hair and a stooped back. She grinned as pain jolted down Arista's scales and fins, shocked by the sudden lack of water (for you see when she hefted her tale up onto the ship the year prior, it had been gradual and still under the onslaught of rain). Fatigue settled upon her as she gulped the dry air and her vision went hazy. The woman laughed an awful sound as Arista blacked out.


End file.
